Alex can’t remember where he is going, why he is going there, or with whom he is traveling. Seth can’t forget who he has been. Gloria seems to know what is about to happen. Liz is completely surprised. Joel believes there are complex requirements to get there. Rachel believes it is simple. Some think it’s a dream, for others it’s all a game.

Contact and Other Impressions

Sonoran Ruminations

“She had recently posted a sign on her lawn, amidst the flamingo-breasts and the duck-goddesses that read:
Portraits of Your Guardian Angels $50 or two for $85.
Occasionally Wade admired her courage, but if he waited twenty to thirty seconds, it passed.”

Celia thought of herself as an open vessel for Spirit to work through, and as such it was ever her intention to allow herself to be used without the pesky obfuscation of the intellect. At this she usually succeeded."

We all know there is more to existence than what reaches us through the five senses. We feel it in our guts, our hearts, our bones. We know there is someone, something, or somewhere else we are trying to connect to, but are there forces trying to contact us? These seven stories: Welcome to the Club, Touch of the Guru, Contact, Exile, The Journal of Alex Beton, Feather in a Frame, and The Initiation Game (first published at moonmagazine.org), track the progress of some fellow seekers.

... all at once your head gets full of knowing things like you’re as much a part of what’s up there as the sky and the wind and the trees, and what it’s like to be a salmon in the river and that there’s nothing to fear in dying and the word itself has a ridiculous sound in your head because how can the sky die.”

This short story collection set in the desert southwest features spiritual themes. What do terracotta suns have to do with racism? Is a little bliss worse than no bliss at all? Who is The Alchemist, the one turning things to gold, the one concocting elixirs, or the one seeking immortality?